


Superficial Changes

by Nabielka



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Consent Issues, F/F, Hair Dyeing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2017-01-18
Packaged: 2018-09-19 04:56:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9419705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nabielka/pseuds/Nabielka
Summary: Matching Damen's tastes doesn't always come naturally.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [unheroics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/unheroics/gifts).



> This fic is brought to you by the edit that turned Jokaste from a brunette to a blonde.

In truth, Jokaste had been apprehensive. However broad the instruction of the royal training gardens, still she could not see that they could have any experience in lightening hair, for Damen’s tastes, however pronounced, ran to blondness in others, not in himself. 

But Kyrina was ill, and there were plenty in the court who thought of Damen’s bed and how they might place themselves within it. It would not be difficult to slip up just a little to remove her in this way, for the procedure required care: left too long and the hair would become brittle, not quite long enough and it would not suffice, would make her the target of the court’s amusement. 

Faced with that, it was easier to thrust her future into the hands of one whose personal ambitions had been trained out of her at an early age, replaced, supposedly, with a conditioning only to please her master. 

She was just as attentive to Jokaste now, her hands soft and steady as she applied the oil to the skin by Jokaste’s hairline, over her ears, at the back of her neck, where the dye was not to stain. But Jokaste was sensitive there, and felt herself shiver. 

She would shiver too at Damen’s touch, but there was something about the size of his hands, their sword callouses, that changed the shape of him at her back into something that set her on edge. But the slave-girl’s touch was purposeful, dedicated, not idle like Damen’s, assessing, claiming. 

When he touched her thus, his mouth was a little higher up, against her cheek, whispering in her ear. He liked running his hands through her hair, liked the contrast even more than its softness.

For her part, Jokaste was only now beginning to feel accustomed to her own reflection in her looking-glass, colourless. The first time, it had taken Kyrina a few days to stop asking if she felt quite well, and Jokaste, catching sight of herself every so often, could not quite bring herself to be annoyed.

But she was not fool enough to abandon such an easily-gained advantage for the sake of her own personal preferences. The way to power ran thus for women: the Prince’s hand against her breast, his weight on her, his tastes shaping her life.

The brush of paste was very cool. She leaned her head back, letting her eyes slip shut. 

However Lykaios’ own pale looks had been cultivated in the slave gardens, it had not been thus. Jokaste had seen her, before the weather had begun to cool, unclothed. She had been blonde all the way down. 

Still, it was not so great a sacrifice. Damen was far from the exacting lovers seen in the plays of Amphidamos, and the hair on her arms and legs, where he did not rest his gaze, she could leave as it was. 

A rustle of movement made her open them again. The slave-girl was stepping around Jokaste’s seat to better cover her hair all around. Her arm, reaching up, was pale and undefined. She had even less visible muscle than Jokaste herself, whose build was slim by nature and who had never been allowed to proceed through enough training to build it up. 

Oh, she’d had the customary defensive training of any well-born child, but while boys received further instruction in hopes of advancing through the king’s army, her own had stopped there. She might have reached the skill of a Vaskian, had she been born near the border, or anywhere in Delpha, where the population must be ever ready to take up arms, and whose General Makedon cared not about such things. But there was little point, they had said, unheeding to her cries, for Theomedes did not make warriors of women. Perhaps if he had had daughters… 

But neither Damen nor his brother would ever know such challenges. She would touch him thus sometimes, her hand not quite curling around his bicep, and he would smile and, taking it for uncomplicated admiration, kiss her again. 

Lykaios’ voice, although quiet, brought her out of her thoughts. “If you could close your eyes, my lady.” 

She had stepped forward a little, a thinner brush in her hand. It would take barely a movement for Jokaste to reach out and touch her. The rest of her skin would be as soft as her hands.

She did close them, and felt, a moment later, the touch of a thin brush over her eyebrow. It moved slowly and carefully, the touch faint. Lykaios’ fingers, smooth and a little warm, rested on the side of her face. Her other hand cupped Jokaste’s chin to hold her head steady.

She was so close that had she been a woman of the court, Jokaste might have expected her to close the gap between them. She felt, absurdly, that she was still almost waiting for it.

But Lykaios’ attention only shifted to the other side. In truth, she did seem practiced. Jokaste allowed herself to wonder who else had availed themselves of such services. But she had not been so long at court, and so close to Damen, to be able to tell. There might have been a long line of women lightening their hair for even a week longer in the Prince's bed.

Lykaios moved her fingers away, and Jokaste’s eyes opened.

Sitting, Jokaste was forced to look up at her, like she commonly had to look up at Damen. But at times she still felt nervous, looking at him, for he had a way of gathering control of all in a room without appearing to do much at all. It was a power that went beyond rank, that came from the utter certainty of his training. In contrast, there was nothing commanding about Lykaios at all. If anything, there was something calming about her features. 

But then Damen would look back, and that made her breath catch too at times, to have all that attention fixed on her. Lykaios’ gaze had dropped down with her hands. 

The treatment of her head had been accomplished now, and only one task remained. Wordlessly, Damen’s slave-girl went to her knees with practiced ease. 

She made a pretty picture. This close, the faint freckles across her cheekbones were revealed, the slight irregularity of her brows. She was lovely to look at.

Jokaste spread her legs, the skirts riding up. 

Here, care was even more important. A spread of unwanted dye across the skin of her face would make her leave court, but if it sank between her legs it might well turn dangerous, it might make it impossible for her to return. 

Jokaste was ambitious enough, to be sure, but she quailed still at the risk. She had some assurances of Damen’s affection, and had found to her delight that sometimes when she made suggestions she might expect to later find that they had been followed. And Damen’s tastes, of course, were well known.

So she was not such a stranger to this, but it had never been like this with Kyrina. Her movements had always been clinical, brusque; there was no feeling or intent to it. There was no intent to this either, it being a necessary act of service commanded, without much thought given to it, by the one who was to rule them all. 

It ought to have been nothing at all, but still she twitched when Lykaios touched her. The oil was cool, and the suddenness of it stole her breath, but it was more than that. It was those careful hands, so soft, touching her so intimately. 

They were alone. 

At times Damen would touch her like this, slowly, while she lay beneath him in bed. It was unthinkable to think of him on his knees, servicing anybody, but still, she might have been receiving the attendance and loyalty of a maid eager to rise in the world. There was many a pretty girl in Ios who would be keen to know that in return for her fine attentions would come the moment where she could whisper in her lady’s ear and have her own desires met. 

Kyrina was not quite like that. She had known Kyrina for years, and she knew Kyrina’s interests well enough, and knew too her own. And she knew, even as she looked down, that to do so was to see the bend of Lykaios’ wrist, and around it the gold of lifelong service. 

The time had come for the dye to be applied. True enough, the gardens had trained her into a vessel of careful compliance, and she was intent on her task, her lips a little parted as she spread the paste on dark curls. 

There was one benefit to not having been born in Delpha. It was said that the women in the south used some Veretian mixtures that were to be left on the hair overnight. She did not see how they could sleep, she could not think how their bedclothes were not ruined or how their lovers endured it. But then of course the women of Delpha were famously liberated, and perhaps chose only partners who would not bring them trouble.

The royal family and the kyroi, for their part, kept slaves who brought them no trouble at all. Looking down at Lykaios on her knees, it struck Jokaste that she was seeing her much as Damen did. The thought sent a shiver up her spine. 

She made a pretty picture. The rigorous maintenance of the slave administrators had made her hair shine, her body well proportioned. She had had the best training that could be provided, and even now was poised in perfect submission, her head bowed, though her task was done. The hair being shorter, and not quite as thick as that on her head, it had taken only a little time. 

Jokaste stretched out her arm, curled her arm under Lykaios’ chin and lifted it up. In this light, her face really was lovely. She let her thumb move a little in the slightest caress. Beneath her fingertips, Lykaios’ skin was soft, and very smooth. 

It came almost a surprise to her that she could do this. 

“Give me your hand,” she said. It was lifted in a move of practiced obedience, the gold catching the light. 

For the first time Jokaste found herself wondering about the weight of it. Experimentally, she reached out, and taking Lykaios’ hand in her own, ran her fingers down it so that they rested just beneath the cuff. The warmth from the slave-girl’s skin had transferred, so that to the touch it was akin to the ornamental gold worn by the women of the court. There was nothing in it to suggest how it might define one's life.

She curled her fingers around Lykaios’. Her hand was warm, her fingernails clipped very close. 

She said, “I don’t believe you’ve finished your task.”

A flush rose on that fine face, as was wont to happen when any of the slaves met with discontentment. Her voice when it came was quiet. “My lady, the paste…” She faltered. 

“Yes,” said Jokaste, feeling bolder now. “The paste’s task is done, or near enough for now. But yours is not.” Saying this, she pulled the girl’s hand up higher, so that it rested on the inside of her upper thigh.

It was clear that she understood. She pulled herself up a little, still on her knees, and with all the grace of royal training proceeded on her way to making Jokaste sigh and moan and bless Damen for having provided her. 


End file.
